Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) (23 page)

BOOK: Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1)
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   But as he uncorked the bottle, the noise of the air escaping with a pop, the anger simmering away within him seemed to burst to the surface. Aidan had his back to Eleanor – his hand reaching up to a cupboard for two wine glasses – which meant he could hide his grimace from her.

   He tried to imagine Falling Water, but all he could picture instead was the blueprint of an incredibly complicated house he’d been helping to design at work, a building so packed with telecommunications, entertainment and security systems that Aidan was convinced it would, through a simple fault or trip, be brought to its knees.

Chapter 65

 

St James’s, London

 

Sam couldn’t see Eleanor, and it terrified him. There’d been regular obstructions to his view but now a group of drinkers had taken up a position between them. He glanced at his watch. Eleanor and Aidan had probably only been seated for about twenty minutes – and the last thing Sam wanted to do was to put Eleanor off by making his presence felt – but he had to see if she was OK.

   He stood, then began nudging his way through the dense mass of drinkers. A moment later, he reached the table where he’d left Eleanor. At the sight that greeted him, Sam felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Another woman, with short blonde hair, was sitting in Eleanor’s place.

   Sam quickly scanned the room. He couldn’t see her. Had they moved to a table in the street outside, or to the beer garden at the rear? If it was the latter, he’d certainly have seen them. They had to be at the front. He pushed his way forward, a white noise of laughter, shouted conversation and music invading his already frazzled head.

   Outside, the pavement was thronged with drinkers. But Eleanor and Aidan Stirling weren’t anywhere to be seen. Sam’s heart was pounding.

   Eleanor had gone, and he’d no idea where.

Chapter 66

 

Downing Street 

 

Frears had gone on ahead of Aidan and Eleanor Scott, while one of his men followed them at a discreet distance to ensure they returned to Downing Street. He was fairly certain they would. After all, they both had good reason: Aidan to save face, Eleanor Scott to save her mother.

   Getting them back to Number 10 had seemed the most sensible option. This way, they were quickly contained. And keen to avoid a scene, he hadn’t told Aidan that Eleanor Scott was no doubt coming to trap him in some way.

  He had to hand it to Keddie and Scott. They had a canny knack for avoiding death. Unfortunately this little idea of theirs had seriously backfired.

   The Guardsman had planned to be up in the apartment to meet them. He was then going to contact Stirling, drag him out of the reception he was attending and await his return and instructions.

   But as he headed for the lift, he heard a shrill voice behind him.

   ‘Major Frears?’

   He turned to see the diminutive figure of Gillian Mayer bearing down on him.

  ‘Might I have a word?’

   ‘I’m on my way to a meeting, Foreign Secretary. I haven’t really –’

   ‘It won’t take a minute,’ said Mayer, cutting off any further debate.

   She leaned against the wall, signalling that the chat was happening here and now. Hopefully it really was to be a brief conversation. He dreaded to think what Aidan Stirling might do in the comfort of his own home.

   ‘We have a spot of bother on an island off the coast of Equatorial Guinea,’ said Mayer, raising her eyebrows. ‘It seems Gabon have landed some soldiers there in an attempt to seize what they say is their territory. Ordinarily, that corner of Africa doesn’t cause me much lost sleep. But the thing is, there are some British oil workers there. Don’t want it turning into a shit storm. Any thoughts?’

   Frears felt a bead of sweat escape an armpit and trickle down his side. ‘What are we talking about here, Foreign Secretary? Extraction?’

   ‘Well, we certainly don’t plan to send a task force,’ she said, with a snort of laughter. ‘Why is it you military want a bloody skirmish all the time?’

   ‘Extraction, as you know, is not that easy these days with our limited resources,’ said Frears. ‘We’re talking 48 hours at the earliest – and you’ll need a good team to ensure there’s no unnecessary bloodshed. I’d need to go away and have a think.’ He puffed out his chest and lifted his head, trying to command the situation. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must dash.’

   ‘In a minute, Major, in a minute,’ said Mayer, who was not to be intimidated. ‘Just so we’re clear, what sort of sized team are we talking about? And could we narrow the timeframe if we sourced men from inside Africa?’ 

   Frears’ toes strained inside his brogues. He had to get moving. Racking his brains for a suitable response, he remembered his ill-fated stint in Nigeria.

   ‘There’s probably a team at the consulate in Lagos that could be mobilised. Twenty men. Experienced guys.’

   Mayer looked at him with her small, hawk-like eyes, then nodded. ‘Very good, Major. I’ll mull that one over. Might pick your brains again later, if that’s OK.’ She smiled sweetly, as if they’d just been discussing knitting patterns, then turned on her heel.

   Frears rushed down the corridor towards the lift.

Chapter 67

 

Downing Street 

 

Eleanor realised how little she’d eaten that day. The gin & tonic, and now the sip of wine she’d drunk simply to settle her rampant anxiety, had gone straight to her head. She was giddy, nauseous. Her head ached. She felt as if she were waiting for the executioner.

   That this might be Aidan no longer seemed likely. She was no expert in psychosis, but the idea of him attacking her, when she visualised it in her head, seemed absurd. Whether he’d killed that girl or not, there was no anger right now, no whiff of madness about him. No, the threat she was convinced she faced was from the men in the pub. She shuddered, her body breaking out in goose bumps.

   ‘Do you mind if I use the bathroom?’ she asked.

   ‘Of course not,’ said Aidan. ‘You know where it is – just down the hall.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

   The conversation had become stilted. Attempting to be chatty and normal was becoming an unbearable strain.

   Locking the door behind her, she sat down on the closed toilet seat, took out her phone and began texting:

  Forced to come to downg st with aidan. They threatened to kill my mother.

 
 
She felt the futility of the message even as she pressed ‘send’. What could Samdo
?
But to feel even vaguely connected to him seemed somehow comforting. She leaned back against the toilet, scanning the room to distract herself. There was a large, free-standing bath, an antique table by it – Indian perhaps – covered in shampoos and conditioners. A shower enclosed in glass. A basin sitting beneath a mirror-fronted cabinet. What secrets would she find in there, Eleanor wondered? To the right of the basin, just before a window, was a large red push button at shoulder height. She’d seen a similar one in the kitchen.

   Eleanor closed her eyes. She was acutely aware of her fears, and how they shaped the way she’d been all evening. Desperate not to upset Aidan in any way, to play to his interests. Her shoulders ached with tension.

   She stood, flushing the toilet, and then unlocked the bathroom. As she walked back towards the kitchen, the front door of the apartment opened.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 68

 

St James’s, London

 

Sam was walking north away from St James’s – his mobile gripped tightly in his hand as he debated the pros and cons of dialling Eleanor’s number – when he received her text. The stomach-churning theory that had been building since she’d disappeared was now confirmed. Eleanor was in Downing Street.

   Sam froze for a moment, the air around him suddenly cold. How could they have been so naive?

   He looked around him. There was a man at a stall selling hotdogs, the whiff of onions and sausage fat nauseating. An old woman feeding pigeons by a lake in the park. Moving towards him, a group of schoolchildren shepherded by a teacher.

   He’d never been more alone.

 

Chapter 69

 

Downing Street 

 

Eleanor recognised the tall man immediately from the pub. He was still wearing a suit but had removed his tie. He seemed to be rapidly assessing the situation, a look of mild surprise on his face. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this.

   He held up a hand. ‘You need to stay right where you are, Miss Scott.’

   Aidan had emerged from the kitchen and was now in front of her. Eleanor was trapped behind them.

   ‘Why can’t you just leave me alone?’ Aidan groaned.

   ‘Because it’s not safe to do that,’ hissed the man.

   He began directing both of them towards the kitchen. Aidan moved first but Eleanor paused. The man moved down the hall at a pace, grabbing her arm and wrenching it as he pulled her back towards the kitchen. He flung her into the room, her thigh slamming hard into the table. For a moment, she found the man’s eyes staring at her, pupils blazing with anger.

   But a second later, the man lashed out to the right. Out of Eleanor’s vision, Aidan had clearly made a movement towards him, and the tall man had reacted with force. She watched in horror as the two men grappled in front of her, blocking her route out of the kitchen to the lift.

   The man elbowed Aidan in the stomach. He let out a winded cry of pain and bent over, clutching his belly. He then dropped to his knees in the hallway outside the kitchen.

   In a swift movement, the man was behind Aidan. He pushed him stomach-first on to the carpet and sat astride him. He then yanked both of Aidan’s hands behind his back, holding them with one of his own. With the other, he pulled his tie from a jacket pocket.

   Eleanor stood, frozen on the spot with terror. She wanted to run as fast as she could from the apartment. But she was trapped by the men blocking her path. At the same time she knew that, with Aidan almost restrained, the tall man would turn on her. She looked round frantically, then saw the red button. She darted towards it, pressing down firmly with the palm of her hand.

   The sound of an alarm instantly broke out. It was like a repetitive klaxon, far louder than a fire alarm.

   ‘You stupid bitch!’ shouted the man over the deafening din. Beneath him, Aidan had started to thrash about. A leg shot out and kicked the tall man in his crotch. He momentarily lost his grip, groaning in agony. Aidan seized his chance, crawling forwards away from the kitchen and down the corridor towards his bedroom. But as quickly the tall man was on his feet and moving towards Aidan to leap on to his back.

   There was now a clear path out of the flat. Eleanor grabbed her bag and Aidan’s glass, dashing from the kitchen.  

   A moment later she was out of the apartment’s front door and in front of the lift. The light above the doors indicated ‘G’. She didn’t dare wait, turning left through a door marked ‘emergency exit’. She found herself on a staircase. It had to be the same service access that connected the kitchen with the ground floor. If she went down, she was confident she’d soon find herself back in the reception rooms – and close to the front door. In between the rhythmic screeches of the alarm she could hear other sounds, raised voices from downstairs, people running.

Chapter 70

 

Downing Street 

 

Even from his position on Horse Guards Road, Sam could hear the alarm. The two policemen on the gates reacted immediately, visibly tensing, heads dipping as they listened to the crackle on their shoulder-mounted radios.

   Moments later, four more policemen joined them. Two took up positions facing out, the remaining four facing in. Their machine guns were no longer loosely held, but gripped tight, aimed forward.

   Had Eleanor activated a fire alarm? Or, judging by the policemen’s reaction, something more serious?

   Through the gates in the distance, Sam could see people spilling on to the pavement in Downing Street, moving towards the gates at the eastern end. If Eleanor was among them, this would be the direction she’d come. He had to get round the other side. He looked to the north. Horse Guards Parade Ground stretched across several blocks. There was no way he’d be able to cross to Whitehall through there. He turned south, breaking into a jog, his leg wound protesting with sharp jolts of pain every time his left foot hit the pavement.

 

Chapter 71

 

Downing Street 

 

On the next landing Eleanor joined others, staff that had been working on the third floor. They pushed through double doors on to the landing. Behind them, Eleanor saw a corridor, doors opening and more people emerging.

   ‘We need to evacuate the building fast,’ said a man who seemed to be acting as a kind of marshal. Suddenly their path down the stairs was blocked by a team of police pacing up the stairs. They were dressed in flak jackets and clutching handguns.

   The staff paused, united in their shock at seeing armed men move through what should have been one of the safest houses in the world.

   With the police now on the next flight up, Eleanor joined the others on their journey out of the house. They moved down the service stairs to the second and first floors, where more staff members joined the exodus. There was a sense that they’d all been trained for this moment. The pace was calm, a shared understanding that, if they panicked, people would be trampled. Yet the expressions Eleanor saw on faces suggested another story. The woman next to her – in her fifties, with greying hair – was fraught, her eyes darting about as if she were a trapped animal.

   Finally they were on the ground floor and then moving through double doors into one of the reception rooms Aidan had shown her earlier. She remembered the vast Persian carpet, a wall painted in deep terracotta. A moment later she could see the open door ahead.

   Two armed policemen, standing right outside the front door, were directing them left, telling them to keep tightly to the side of the building and move in single file towards the Whitehall entrance. Ahead, at the open gates, police cars were streaming through, blue lights flashing. The gates were then closed again. Eleanor began to panic. Would she be stuck here?

   As she moved slowly along the side of the building, she looked out at Whitehall. People were beginning to be ushered away. But across the road, a crowd of spectators was gathering. She scanned their faces, willing Sam to be there.

   A moment later, she joined a group of around fifty people at the gate. She pushed herself through the throng and looked out at Whitehall. It was then Sam came into view. Jogging, with visible difficulty, from the direction of Parliament Square. He was on her side of Whitehall but she knew he’d soon be directed across the road.

   Sure enough, he came up against a wall of police who gestured for him to move to the other side of the road. She watched Sam cross in front of the now stationary traffic, halted by a police car parked at an angle across the road, blue lights pulsing.

   As if the bomb-proof steel of the gates wasn’t enough of a barrier, there was now a line of police officers directly outside the gates.

   Eleanor’s stomach lurched as she realised what would happen next. She’d be interviewed – grilled as to why she was here, and what had happened.

   She closed her eyes momentarily, attempting to form a coherent and plausible story in her head. She and Aidan were old friends; he was her father’s godchild.

   A terrifying possibility interrupted her thought process. What if the tall man caught up with her?

   There was a crush at the gate as the group she was with was herded into a corner. She found herself pressed against the railings. On the other side, the police line had momentarily shifted. They seemed to be gathering around an officer, listening to instructions about what was turning out to be a rapidly developing situation.

   To her left, another crowd had developed, held in check by a single officer. Another officer rushed over to him, cupping a hand over his ear. A moment later, he shouted at the crowd, asking them to stay where they were, then rushed to the huddle receiving orders by the gates.

   It was then that Eleanor saw Sam emerge from the crowd to her left. He was walking towards the railings, mouthing the words ‘You OK?’

   Eleanor nodded. Sam was now feet from her. She turned to her right. The officer giving orders at the gate seemed to be winding up, the men around him ready to resume positions. It was now or never.

   Eleanor passed her bag through the railings. Sam snatched it and walked quickly back in the direction he’d come.

*

Sam was half-expecting one of the police officers to call out. But there was no shout. He merged into the crowds, pushing past people too interested in the drama in front of them to notice him. Then, with a final shove of his shoulder, he was free.

   As he moved further away from Downing Street, the pavements were eerily quiet. Up ahead, Whitehall had been sealed off at Trafalgar Square. The few people remaining were being ushered to a cordon at that point.

   Sam sneaked a look inside Eleanor’s bag. There, nestling on the soft bed of her scarf, was a wine glass.
  

   They had the evidence they needed. But, in the process, he’d lost Eleanor.

 

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